tangled ends
by andthenshesaid
Summary: In which the boy in the mask goes a little bit crazier and the girl with the flower tries to hold him together. TobiObito Theory. AUish.


I.

It's after a fight with the blonde boy. The fox-container. The thing Pein wants as of this moment. And so Konan, a little tired, because does Pein really need everything. She had Nagato and Yahiko had lived on scraps of food and little pieces of paper found on the ground and rainwater collected in gourds for years. And now Pein just needs everything. It's so completely pointless.

It's after the fight, and she remembers the boy used Rasengan, which proved he wasn't a complete waste. If he weren't a container and loyal, he would be a good member to the Akatsuki, they could use a bit of sunshine.

She finds Tobi, curled up in a ball under the table, mask in his hands. His hair is black, one of his eyes is closed with a scar that looks eerily familiar, and his one eye, the one with the sharingan has tears pouring out of it.

He's murmuring something and rocking back and forth and Konan feels the urge to hug him, even if half his body is made up of bolts and fake bones.

She hears a snatch of "sensei" and "yellow" and "not late…," but ignores it. Tobi's always been a bit crazy. They all have.

She gives him her flower for the day, made out of an old soup wrapper, to remind her of home. He looks up at her and sniffs something.

"Rin…"

II

Konan was one of the ones who first found him, he knows that. Zetsu and her, because they were out for a walk because Konan's one of the only people Zetsu doesn't try to eat anymore.

He remembers being crushed. And a lot of pain. Something about a mask and an eye and rules floated just above him. He remembers a lot of yellow, a flash of twinkling blue, and a caring smile. He remembers a girl with brown hair and red markings and a name. Rin. He remembers something about a scarecrow too, but before he can latch onto to that thought, it's gone. A screaming red head passes through his mind, the flash of yellow smirking. He remembers a dark compound. And goggles. And helping an old lady across a street and something about a wolf.

But then there's a woman with blue hair and eyes that remind of the girl, even though they look nothing alike, it's the look in her eyes and a strange black and white thing with a plant, grumbling to itself.

He remembers a man with red hair, working over him.

And he remembers Konan, because that was girl-with-Rin's-eye's name noticing the looks people gave him. He hid the puppet part of his body under long sleeves and pants, not odd in his line of work. A mask floats through his mind, black and simple, making it look like a wolf didn't smile. Only it's not a wolf, but it had white hair and no smiles, except sometimes when the eyes crinkle up, but that's rare now. He didn't like things that forced the memories back into his head. Konan's eyes, the yellow of Deidra's hair, the way Pein moved, Itachi. He avoided them. But Konan brought him a mask that covers his not working eye and the scars and it's a swirling orange that hypnotizes him, almost, and it makes him feel safe for some reason.

It brings back letters and sounds into his brain.

He calls himself Tobi after that, and it's almost right.

III

Konan liked Tobi, when he wasn't being insane. Occasionally he'd have little moments, where he'd put his hand up and scratch the back of his head and it almost looked like he was blushing when his eye lit up in a certain way.

Konan was sure that if he hadn't been crushed by rocks, he would have been one of the most normal people out there.

She was mildly curious about his past, she supposed. Not the way she wondered but-what-if-Yahiko-had-lived, but more in the way she wondered if there were aliens out there. It was something that she wouldn't object to knowing, but she wasn't going to push.

She did wonder why he avoided Itachi so much, and why he would always go into overdrive Tobi-is-a-good-boy when he was around. Did Tobi steal the sharingan eye? It would explain why he only had one, but not why he only had one eye. Itachi largely ignored him, or at least noticed him in the way that Itachi did that looked like he was ignoring him, however she did notice the glares Itachi shot his way sometimes.

He had his breakdowns, Tobi did. It was best to let them pass. They all had their way to deal with problems. Hidan took lots and lots of showers. Kakazu would stare at money for hours on end, Sasori sometimes talked to his parents like they weren't puppets, she went to go cry after she talked to what used to be Yahiko.

Tobi dealt with it by rocking under a table muttering things.

You got used to it.

IV.

Tobi had good balance, normally. So it came as an utter surprise when he almost fell off a tree branch as a rush of memories hit him.

There was a group of ninja, he was talking to them. Sasuke was about to kill Itachi. That was what was happening. But… He was also rubbing the back of his head, wearing goggles, warm and safe again. Something about the road of life… Rin, half glaring, half smiling at him. A boy, a wolf, something with spiky white hair and the black mask, no emotion in his face.

"Worse than scum…"

The boy with the white hair, a scarecrow maybe, something, is staring at him as he runs off, to do something. Something with purpose.

His body is on fire, his eye is gone, and he sees the boy with white hair give him one last look, then run off.

The rocks came tumbling down.

"Kakashi."

The ninja below him gave him a look and he had white hair and a mask and it made Tobi's head hurt. Was it Tobi? It was Tobi. T-O-B-I. O-B-I. I-T-O. Tobi.

He runs.

V.

She sends out 2 paper clones during the battle.

One goes to try and find the blonde boy, and kills countless people. She lets the paper wash away in the wind when she's done, except for one piece, miraculously clean of blood, that she folds into a new flower for her hair.

The second goes to look around, to search in a gentler way. It finds itself at a stone, etched with names.

Tobi's there.

Mask off, hair wild and unruly. Both eyes closed the scar visible.

Konan's paper clone stares, making no noise.

His fingers trace over a name, over and over.

_Obito Uchiha_

_**Pretty AU in spots. Yeah. But I still live by the ObitoTobi theory, even if its probably not true. I mean. You saw his back in the last one. It could have been Obito. I mean. Sure. It looked like every other Uchiha ever minus maybe Itachi. But still. I live by happiness. Sasuke will also come back and nobody else will everever die. **_

**_Dreamworld is nice like that._**

**_Anyway. Thoughts?_**


End file.
